Stage 4: Creating Repeat Buyers

Welcome to lesson number five. In this lesson, we are going to start making our profits.

This lesson is all about Stage 4, getting the second purchase from our First Time Buyers.

What you must get right in Stage 4

First of all, you need to impress your First Time Buyers with their purchase. Then you need to find the triggers to get them to buy again.

Impress them with the first orderThe First Time Buyer has just put a lot of faith in you—they’ve given you their money, and they’re trusting you to deliver what they ordered in a timely and satisfactory way.

Those are the hygiene factors, and you have to hit them or have a great customer service team ready to deal with any issues.

Getting the hygiene factors right isn’t going to impress them, it’s just what they expect.

So what can you do to impress them? Here’s a few ideas:

• Include a free gift in their parcel

• Call them the day after delivery to make sure everything’s ok

• Include an offer off their next order in their parcel

• Use beautiful packaging that fits with your brand and is a pleasure to open

• Include a hand-written thank you note

Just a little bit of effort with the parcels can go a long way.

Online retailer Feel Unique spent 2016 improving their delivery to increase repeat orders, and it had a noticeable impact—including increasing repeat orders from overseas by more than 50%.

Find the triggers to get the next purchaseFor many businesses, the best time to get the second purchase and cement the buying habit is straight after the first purchase; that’s why an offer in the parcel can work wonders!

But that’s not the best time for every business, so you need to work out what the right timing to get the second purchase is for your business and focus your marketing efforts on that point in time:

• In travel, there are usually two trigger points:

– When the customer has just gotten back from their last trip

– Annual purchase habit—the customer buys in the same month every year

• In gift markets, the anniversary of a purchase can be very powerful—they may only come to you to buy for one specific person’s birthday each year.

• In consumables (vitamins, razors, etc) it’s all about how quickly the customer can be expected to finish the product.

Work out when your customers are most likely to buy again, then focus your marketing at that point.

Both email and remarketing advertising are great ways to automate this.

Key messages for encouraging First Time Buyers to buy again

Think about all the communications the customer has already experienced as they made their way through Stages 1, 2, and 3. You have to be consistent with all that’s gone before.

Continue reminding them how your other customers think of you.

Continue reminding them how much you and your team care.

Continue reminding them how great your new and bestselling products are.

Now, though, you also need to make sure you’re promoting the right products to get the next purchase.

• If they’ve just bought women’s clothing, it’s probably not worth sending them communications about men’s.

• If they’ve purchased something consumable, then make sure they buy that again, or something complementary.

• If they bought a trial size or a tester, promote a larger pack.

It’s as important to avoid putting the totally irrelevant in front of them as it is to put relevant products in front of them.

Catch up tomorrow for our sixth lesson, where we’re going to look at Stage 5—using the knowledge of your best customers to make the whole business better.